Much of security is built on trust, but it turns out you can't always believe a mobile device's claims. They can be programmed to lie about their capabilities, as in the case of several Android devices, as well as jailbroken iPhones and iPads. Thus, they can appear to conform to IT security policies managed via Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol even when they don't. Two recent events show that trust may be misplaced in the mobile world.

Also last week, InfoWorld.com discovered that Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android tablet can connect to Exchange servers that require on-device encryption to gain access -- even though, as Samsung acknowledged, the Android OS and, in turn, Galaxy Tab don't support on-device encryption. Samsung stopped responding to our requests when we pointed out its device was doing what the company said it shouldn't do.

By contrast, our tests show that Google's own Nexus is truthful about its policy support, and Google publishes a list of the EAS policies supported (PDF) so you can know what behavior to expect from Android devcies and thus identify those that may be lying. Note that because Android is open source, device makers could modify their mail or other clients to include encryption in their workspaces -- or use third-party clients that do, such as NitroDesk Touchdown, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, Good for Enterprise, and MobileIron MyPhone@Work.

So I have to suspect that Samsung and Motorola's devices aren't accurately reporting to Exchange the policies they in fact support. Perhaps some rogue developer or contractor thought he or she was being smart by getting around the EAS policy requirements. No matter: It feels as if maybe some in the Android community are abusing the trust that EAS requires to be effective -- and such behavior could cause businesses to distrust all Android devices on their networks and ban the whole lot.

If I were Google, I would use its trademark on the Android name and logo to force Android device makers to be honest or else lose the ability to use the Android name in their marketing. (Because Android is open source, Google can't prevent people from using the OS, but it can control the use of the trademark.)

The uncomfortable truth is that there's no easy way to make sure a device is being honest about its capabilities. Any software feature can be hacked, which is likely why Apple pulled the jailbreak detection from iOS 4 -- after all, a jailbroken iPhone is a hacked iPhone, and that hack could easily include a false status indication that it had not been compromised. It's better not to pretend you know the truth when you can't say for sure.

Devices need not be hacked to lie. In 2009, Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 OS incorrectly reported Exchange ActiveSync policy compliance due to a software bug, for example. When iPhone OS 3.1 shipped, the bug was quietly fixed, so truthful iPhones suddenly stopped connecting to Exchange servers, taking users and IT by unhappy surprise.